1. Based in Hong Kong

So they don’t share data collected with other top intelligence agencies from around the world.

That’s a good thing, right?

Yes and no.

After all, Hong Kong is under the control of the People’s Republic of China. And the only VPNs allowed in China are ‘government-sponsored.’

Maybe I’m a cynic. Or a conspiracy theorist. Or a dumb American. Or all three.

But anything ‘government-sponsored’ by a totalitarian regime seems questionable.

Make of it what you will.

2. No Leaks, but Viruses Detected

This is one of those good news, bad news things.

On the plus side, we didn’t find any DNS leaks present. That means if your VPN connection says you’re located somewhere in Amsterdam or the Australian Outback, that’s what everyone else is seeing, too.

No need to worry about your VPN connection giving up your true location without even realizing it.

BlackVPN passed each of the six DNS leak tests with flying colors. Great start!

https://ipleak.net/ (none found)

https://www.perfect-privacy.com/check-ip/ (none found)

https://ipx.ac/run (none found)

https://browserleaks.com/webrtc (none found)

https://www.perfect-privacy.com/dns-leaktest/ (none found)

http://dnsleak.com/ (none found!)

To make this test accurate, we used their Australian, Netherlands and UK servers. None of them leaked your IP address:

After completing these five DNS leak tests, we run the VPN installation files through VirusTotal.

Here’s where things went off the rails a bit.

Our test showed two big issues with the very files you’re able to download and run on your machine:

Let me bring this full circle:

A ‘government-sponsored’ software that just so happens to also feature two viruses in their install files?

Draw your own conclusions.

3. Not Compatible with All Platforms

BlackVPN covers the basics.

They work with Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, and Android devices. The menu at the top right-hand corner of the page has a drop-down menu for the installation files for each platform.

BlackVPN also works with routers and the Tor browser.

All good news.

Except, it is not compatible with SmartTV’s or gaming consoles. Not officially, anyway.

Customer support said that there’s a workaround if you connect them to a router using BVPN.

Since BlackVPN operates on OpenVPN (including the BlackVPN app itself), there are not actually any actual apps to install on your smartphone and tablet. Instead, you have to do setups with the OpenVPN app, and then connect manually to servers by installing the servers.

On the plus side, you can use the same BlackVPN account on up to seven devices at the same time.

4. Slow Server Speeds

Testing server speeds is pretty easy in reality.

First, you test your connection without any added encryption. My default one started at 97.00 Mbps download and 53.00 Mbps upload.

Then, you connect to different VPN servers and re-try.

You’ll almost always notice a drop off in both categories. But ideally, the difference is negligible.

That was NOT our experience in this scenario. Here’s what we saw on the U.S. servers:

US Server

Ping: 113

Download: 15.23 Mbps (84.3% slower)

Upload: 22.50 Mbps (57.5% slower)

Holy Moly! That is terrible! The download speed is 84% slower?

Let’s double-check an EU server to see if this was a one-time thing.EU Server

Ping: 42

Download: 66.04 Mbps (24% slower)

Upload: 43.01 Mbps (18.8% slower)

Ok. Not bad, but not great.

Part of the reason for this skewed performance?

My true physical location was pretty close to the Amsterdam server at the time, and not the U.S. one.

It really is that simple.

The closer you are, the better performance (generally speaking).

That’s still a problem in this case, though.

Remember that BlackVPN only has 31 servers in 18 countries. Limited networks like this typically make it harder to:

Find servers ‘free’ from the demands of too many other users, and

Find these ‘free’ servers that are still relatively close to your starting location

So it’s not just that these one-time speed tests were bad. It’s that based on a limited network, we can probably predict pretty slow speeds in the future, too.

5. Works with Netflix on the Two Most Expensive Packages

More good news, bad news.

First, the good.

BlackVPN said that Netflix would work on the United States West Coast server.

The bad part is that the U.S. East Coast server did not work. Neither did servers in Canada, the United Kingdom, or the Netherlands.

The other negative aspect is the working server is only available under the most expensive plan options.

So you’re going to have to pony up more dough if unlocking geo-restricted content is important to you.

6. Limited Torrenting

BlackVPN allows torrenting.

But only on selected servers that are available only on selected plans:

The cheapest one (Privacy), and the most expensive one (Global).

Speaking of the pricey Global plan, despite paying extra money, you’re still not allowed to use the US or UK servers for torrenting.

Their reason was a little puzzling:

Isn’t hiding your location a primary reason for using VPNs in the first place?

So if you can be traced in the US and UK, it sounds like this VPN provider might not be doing its job?

They even put this torrenting issue front-and-center in their terms of service when you’re signing up

So yes, technically, they allow torrenting. But there are so many restrictions that it’s practically a wash.

7. Features Limited Heavily by Plan

We’ve alluded to this one in the past few points.

But your plan features are heavily influenced (read: limited) based on how much you’re paying.

For instance:

Privacy: 16 VPN locations, but NOT the UK and US. You also get unrestricted P2P/Bittorrent. No TV streaming.

TV: 4 VPN locations (3 in the US and 1 in the UK). With this package, you can also “stream TV from the USA and UK”. No P2P and Bittorrent.

Global: 20 VPN locations (including 3 in the US and 1 in the UK). You can also stream TV from the USA and UK, as well as have unrestricted P2P/Bittorrent. However, the sting in the tail with this package is that you cannot use the US and UK servers for P2P and Bittorrent.

Most other VPNs we’ve reviewed will give you full access in each plan. The only difference is the signup length and pricing.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case here.

But they do also offer a free three-day trial, along with a 14-day money-back guarantee and there’s no bandwidth limit like Betternet has. That way, you’re free to try out the service for almost two and a half weeks before committing to that annual payment.

Do You Recommend BlackVPN?

I do like the pricing options, the fact it works with Tor, the fast customer service, strong encryption, and no logging.

But the main issues center around slow server speeds, and the fact that you only get torrenting or ability to unblock Netflix on certain servers on certain plans.

Not to mention, their questionable jurisdiction complete with ominous virus warnings we found.

There are just too many other good VPN services out there, like NordVPN, ExpressVPN or Surfshark, that don’t force you to sacrifice this much for arguably better features.

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1 user reviews for BlackVPN

Markus 1/10May 19, 2019

customer service not present?

I tried to apply for their trial through android as their ios app is still beta and must be applied for through mail and testflight app. Although sending several mails directly and using their ticket system, I didn’t get any answer at all? Their android app hasn’t been updated for nearly 2 years and trying to apply for the 3 day trial resulted in a "problem contacting the server" error.. I then decided to pay for a month to try it out, but the android app was very buggy and nearly useless. Then I tried installing the mac os version which required further download of configuration files and some tweaking, to get it to work right. Still not satisfied I decided to apply for the "14 Day Full Money Back Guarantee", but they also didn’t answer regarding this issue. It seems to me that something has happened to blackVPN´s "Great customer support" since thebestvpn.com reviewed them back in February ?